Today you are going to:
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Create a Monster.
Learn about narrative poetry.
Write a narrative poem that will be entered into
Young Writers monster poetry competition.
Descriptive Words
Monster Examples
Create Your Monster
Use your planning sheet
to describe and draw
your monster
What is a narrative poem?
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A poem that tells a story.
Has a beginning, middle and end.
Uses a range of poetry techniques for effect.
What you could write about?
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A day out with your monster.
How your monster saved the world.
Your monster’s evil plan to take over the universe.
Your monster going for lunch with the Queen.
Poetry Techniques
• Simile
A simile describes something or someone ‘like’ or ‘as’ something else.
Example: ‘She was as white as a ghost’
• Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of the same starting sound in several words of a sentence.
Example: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.’
• Rhyme
A rhyme is a word that is identical to another in its terminal sound.
Example: ‘Cat and Hat’
Example 2: ‘While and Mile’
• Rhythm
Rhythm refers to the pattern of sounds made varying the stressed and unstressed
syllables in a poem.
Examples of narrative poems
Key
The Highwayman
Similie
Alliteration
Rhyme
PART ONE
I
THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came ridingRiding-ridingThe highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
IV
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-
II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
V
'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'
III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked
and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair I' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight,
and galloped away to the West.
© 1906 Alfred Noyes
Examples of narrative poems
Key
Similie
Alliteration
Rhyme
The Listeners
"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
© Walter de la Mare
Plot Planning
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Where is your monster from?
Does it have friends?
Is it good or bad?
What adventures can you go on?
Where can you go?
What did you see?
What did you hear?
What did you smell?
What did you feel?
What did you taste?
Write your ideas on your planning sheet
Example monster poems
The Sabre-Toothed Huggle
The Fiend
On the way to school I met
A monster all fluffy and blue
He wasn’t a lost pet
And he was about 6 foot 2.
His teeth were pointy and white
Yet he was a friendly creature
When he asked to go and fly a kite
‘Of course!’ said my teacher.
We felt the wind pull the kite string
We smelt BBQ on the breeze
We played on the swings
And then climbed up the trees.
Today was amazing, today was just brill
I hope Huggle visits again, he said he will!
The Fiend was born in a volcano
It has molten-red skin and yellow eyes that glow
It smells smoky and has crooked teeth
It is mean and likes chaos.
It left the volcano on an adventure
It needed to be nasty and make people sad
But it met me on the beach.
I trapped The Fiend in a hole I’d dug
And it sizzled as the tide came in
Its flaming skin turned blue
‘I’m sorry,’ it said and turned to dust.
‘Hooray! You saved us!’ the people said
And I smiled at them with my crooked teeth and yellow
eyes that glowed …
Writing your monster poem
Use the monster you have created and plot ideas to compose a poem.
Try to include at least one of the following:
Alliteration . Rhythm . Simile . Rhyme
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